


Dominoes Falling

by hithelleth



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Future Fic, Multi, Post-TO S4, Post-TVD Finale, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 07:35:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12452655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hithelleth/pseuds/hithelleth
Summary: Happy endings don’t last. Especially not between two originals and a doppelganger. However, this is only the beginning.





	Dominoes Falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agirlnamedtruth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agirlnamedtruth/gifts).



> I hope you like it. :)

It turns out sometimes late is worse than never.

Sometimes, losses are just that, losses, and the devastating sum of them that ties her to others is just as much an endless abyss between them, and all the pain and torment they have gone through together and that bind them is not enough to not break them apart at the same time.

There is no one to fight in the lull that comes after the last of their near-apocalypses.

She is living a life given back once, twice… — she has lost count (no, she only lies to herself, not forgetting at all) how many times — a life that should be a gift but feels stolen.

So much for happily-ever-afters.

Hers lasts less than two years before it crumples under the weight of the very struggle to get it: so much blood and death and violence, so many lies and manipulations and broken promises, so much sacrifice, all in vain in the end.

The tiny holes that appear in the fabric of their fierce, fire-forged love become a void that gapes wider by the day until the only choice left is to let it consume them or face the truth that they are not meant to be after all. Perhaps they could have been, years ago, before all the bloodshed. Or maybe it was only ever Stefan who bound them and with him gone so is whatever drew them together. Whatever chance they had, whatever fate was theirs, it was in another reality — and the thought is comforting: that somewhere there might exist a version of Elena and Damon who made it.

In this reality, the one they have clawed through to on the sheer power of will and robbed it from death itself, though, she loves him too much and not enough to let it ruin them until whatever is left of love turns to hate and tramples over everything they have paid for it.

So, she applies for a scholarship abroad and breaks it to him when she gets accepted.

It says everything that he doesn’t even fight her. Instead, they hug each other tight, promise to always be friends, and set each other free to live, just live, whatever kind of lives there are for them to live.

***

Of course, she hears all about it.

She may be away from Mystic Falls, but she stays in touch, and Caroline keeps her updated.

A part of her is viciously glad.

For all she has lost to the original family, _they have had it coming,_ a mean little voice inside her jeers. For everything so many people have suffered through a millennium of their reign of terror, they deserve it. No loss, no pain can ever be enough to level the score.

And yet.

And yet, the never forgotten — no matter how much she wants to pretend otherwise — words at the back of her mind whisper of _always and forever_.

Which is why their capability for such a sacrifice — she has no illusion of it being selfless or humanitarian; no, it boils down to a much more basic concept: being done for family — does not surprise her.

So, somewhere deep down, cursed with compassion, she sympathises.

(After all, she knows all too well the weight of giving up those one holds dearest in exchange for their safety.)

***

The pianist has been playing for a while, the music from beneath his fingers blending seamlessly into the atmosphere of _joie de vivre_ in the cafe: glass and porcelain clinking, the chatter of friends and lovers’ whispers interspersed with bursts of laughter, the smell of drinks and perfume mixing with the crisp air from the mountains that blows in whenever the door opens.

_It can’t be_ , Elena thinks when she takes a look at him.

Because, really, what are the odds?

It could be a look-alike, this man who plays the piano as if he had never had a care in the world, undefined by love and loss, free of both passion and the careful restraint thereof.

But the blood in her veins thrums with the truth.

She sits, nearly frozen still, and listens as memories wash over her, bloody and full of terror as well as those of the strange kinship she once felt with this man who is now yet another person lost for her and worse because she can’t have lost what she has never had.

Then Klaus emerges from a shadowed corner, dropping a hundred in the tip jar on top of the piano as he saunters towards the exit.

_Hardly a year and already breaking the rules._

He turns around in the doorway, drawing Elijah’s attention.

Disinterest, confusion, an almost-recognition, a polite acknowledgement.

Elena sees all of it play out on Elijah’s face and knows the world is doomed. As it has always been. Because underneath however many layers of compulsion Elijah isn’t a blank slate, and even if those layers aren’t peeled back by one force or another, it is only a matter of time before primal instinct takes over to the ruin of all.

A flash of anger — _Selfish bastard. How dares he?_ — surges through her along with a tug of something else at what she glimpses in Klaus’s eyes.

She gathers her things in a blur and stalks out after Klaus, unthinking until she stands in the chill darkness outside.

“Two originals and a doppelganger…”

Klaus speaks the words from behind her in a way of greeting, trailing off as she turns to face him.

She snorts. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“I may be a bit off my game. Haven’t been keeping much challenging company lately.”

He shrugs, pushing off the wall he has been leaning against. All nonchalance, but the mask he has donned doesn’t fool her, not now — there is a world of pain behind it.

It slams into her, that bone-deep understanding, and she all but chokes on it as tiredness wraps itself around her like a glove.

Still, she tries… _Fake it till you make it._ An eye roll. A scoff that doesn’t quite make it out of her. A step away and then another. Like they have nothing to say to each other.

_They do have nothing to say to each other._

Shouldn’t have. Probably.

Klaus falls into step with her halfway down the street.

She walks aimlessly for a little while with him beside her, for once quiet, no clever, mocking remarks she would expect from him, then heads for the park. It usually wouldn’t be the wisest choice, but this is Klaus and he has already done the worst he could to her, so she plops down on a bench and leans back to look up at the stars peeking through the gaps between the tree tops.

“Here.” Klaus dangles a bottle in front of her. “I thought you might need it,” he adds.

She huffs. “And you don’t?”

The bitter bark of laughter he gives in response cuts through her like a knife. But there is only the slightest change to the set of his lips as he takes a seat beside her.

And suddenly he is too real. His presence echoes in the night. All-encompassing. Lethal. And she still feels safe, the safest apart from perhaps that _other_ time…

She grabs the proffered bottle from him and cracks it open, the light of a rare lamp a few feet away catching on the amber liquid inside as the whiff of its flavour hits her nostrils.

Bourbon. Expensive.

Stolen. Or maybe overpaid.

Not that she cares when she tips her head back and takes a generous swig to burn down the memory that assaults her, of how it felt dying in his arms.

_For all it had not started that way, towards the end it was peaceful, painless. And for a moment there, before she slipped into unconsciousness, she wished she wouldn’t wake up._

She thrusts the bottle back at him, blindly, carelessly.

_It would have been a good way to go._ The thought crossed her mind then and a few times since, just like the other, guiltier one, the wish that she hadn’t woken up at all.

She doesn’t know how long they sit there, passing the bottle back and forth between them, while Elena watches tree branches and stars and Klaus watches her. (She feels his eyes on her. Feels, too, when his eyes don’t really see her.)

Eventually, she staggers to her feet.

He walks her home, steadying her now and then when she stumbles, the contact — a hand on her hip, a touch to the small of her back, a grip around her elbow — searing through her clothes.

“How come you’re not drunk?” she grumbles, slurring the question a little.

He waves the bottle — not quite empty, but enough — in front of her. “Perhaps because I’m not the one who’s drunk most of this, love.”

She scowls.

When she complains of him getting her drunk, he laughs — it is the old, light sound with a bite of mockery to it — and launches into a rambling response she ignores, something about courtesy and having no need to do that.

He waits until she gets safely through the front door and it clicks locked behind her, stays outside — she knows that even though she can’t see him — until the lights in her apartment flick on.

By the time she makes it to the window, Klaus is gone, though, and the street deserted.

***

There is no sight of either Klaus or Elijah after that night.

Years pass, busy with studying, but not consumed by it. Elena makes friends, steals the time for occasional day and weekend trips, doesn’t let a week go by to not at least text Jeremy, and talks with him and Bonnie and Caroline as often as she can. In turn, Bonnie and Damon stop by on their honeymoon, Jeremy spends a part of a summer with her, and Caroline surprises her once by flying over for a week.

Besides an odd one-night stand, she gives dating a few honest shots, although the number of dates with the same guy stays in single-digits — it is _her_ , not them, and she is fine with that — with the exception of a study-buddies-with-benefits type of relationship she has going on with a colleague for a couple of years.

With a medical degree in her hands, she moves back to the states.

She finds a job in a small town close enough to Mystic Falls for Jeremy and her friends to visit but not too close; there is no need to add a doppelganger to the mix of temptations there.

It is when she settles in — which is not hard with regular office hours and her patients being the kind of people who stop to greet her when they see her in town or shopping in the farmers market — that the feeling of age hits her. Her body is younger than she is: vampirism and the sleeping curse may have spared it the mark of a few years, but her soul has been branded many times over instead.

Time isn’t as soothing as people who don’t need its remedies might imagine. But after each day, there is always another, new one, albeit some better than others. And mostly, she makes the best of them, falling into something of a routine and enjoying the quiet life of the town.

Then, one morning when she is about to leave for work, her doorbell rings.

Somehow, she isn’t surprised at whom she opens the door to.

“Klaus.”

“Elena.” He doesn’t ask for an invitation inside. The moment before he proceeds seems like fate taking a breath. “My daughter and Freya have found a way to,” he pauses, “End. This. Thing.” He gestures vaguely to himself.

Elena swallows. There is an opportunity to crack a joke at his expense, but she passes it. Because a quarter of the horror that can be the end-of-all is much more of a danger than even this man inside whom it resides, and if it can be destroyed…

She lets out a sigh. “Let me guess. It requires a doppelganger sacrifice.”

“Actually, just a little of your blood will do.”

“Wow.” The word slips her, dripping with sarcasm and a bit of awed surprise. It earns her a smirk from Klaus while he waits for the only possible answer.

“In that case,” she says, stepping outside, “you can take me to my office and I’ll get you your blood.”

Klaus grins, motioning to the car pulled up along the sidewalk with an exaggerated flair. “As you wish.”

He opens the door for her, then slides into the driver’s seat, giving her a speculative glance as he pulls off. “You are being strangely cooperative.”

She hums. “Let’s see, as opposed to me refusing, then you threatening the lives of everyone I have ever loved… been there, done that.”

A part of her is appalled at the teasing in her tone that startles him into laugher, even more so that she laughs along with him.

“Yes. Been there, done that,” he agrees.

However, his mood reverts to serious while she watches him out of the corner of her eye, the usual flippancy accompanying such occasions missing.

“This,” he makes that vague gesture to himself again, “combined with our promises, it’s stronger than us. It’s just a question of time —”

“I know,” Elena says.

He clenches his jaw. “Hope is…”

_Everything_. He doesn’t say it, doesn’t have to.

_…the one thing I value most, my family._

The long burnt words were Elijah’s. But for all he may have at times shown it in terrible ways, the sentiment she shares has been Klaus’s as well.

She checks the impulse to reach over in an offer of comfort, but the twitch of her hand she covers by pushing her hair off her face doesn’t escape Klaus.

“Don’t,” he grits. “I’ve still committed a slaughter or two in the past decade.”

“Ah, and there you almost had me worried.”

He scoffs, but his features relax just a notch.

“Even if what I said earlier is true,” he resumes, “Hope is selfish like the rest of us, hell-bent on reuniting her family, so… don’t feel too sorry for us.”

He pulls up at the curb in front of a bakery, leaving her to wait in the car, rolling her eyes as she watches him charm his way past the people already in line, before he comes back with a coffee and a croissant for her.

“The least I can do is provide a snack,” he says.

The rest of the short drive — she usually walks the distance — is over quickly.

He tinkers with his phone and examines her office while she fills him a standard blood bag, putting it in a paper bag so he doesn’t need to compel the receptionist on his way out.

“Good luck,” she says when she hands it over. “I hope that whatever you’re planning doesn’t spectacularly fail and, you know, end the world.”

In lieu of a reply, he inclines his head, his hand already on the doorknob.

Her phone rings ten days later.

He only says four words. “It worked. Thank you.”

***

For her summer vacation, she goes to France. She meets up with friends, relaxes, revisits her old haunts.

In the cafe in Manosque, she gets a sense of _déjà vu_ when the music starts.

This time, though, the pianist’s eyes meet hers and he smiles, and the warmth of his expression makes her breath hitch. He beckons her closer with a jerk of his head and she takes a seat by the piano and watches him play, their eyes catching now and again, never straying far.

Eventually, he lets the final notes fade away amid the jumble of sounds. She stands when he does and waits while he walks over to the counter and empties the contents of his tip glass into a jar labelled ‘homeless shelter’.

“The little things we evil monsters try to ease our guilty conscience with,” he says when he rejoins her.

“You’re not,” she objects by reflex, only to realise she means it. “Evil. Monsters. None of you are. Not even Klaus.” She shrugs. “Speaking of, I thought you’d all stick together, now that…”

“Ah, yes.” He nods. “Well, Rebekah has us trying this new thing called healthy family dynamics —”

“No!” she mock-gasps.

He chuckles. “However,” he adds, “Hope is taking a summer art course before college, so we’ve turned it into family holidays because being human hasn’t stopped Niklaus from being a tad overprotective.”

She laughs. “Obviously.”

_Human._

She knew, of course. Bonnie filled her in on the details, but it only gets through to her now, as she makes her way through the cafe beside Elijah.

_The ritual that channelled the power needed to destroy the Hollow from the originals and their remaining two sirelines has left them to live the rest of their natural lives as human. And as the Hollow was undone, so was the werewolf curse._

The full mechanics of it all are fuzzy, but the results are clear.

_No more vampires. No more werewolves._

Outside, they halt, turning to each other. Somewhere behind the houses lining the street, the sun is setting, throwing long shadows across the ground, broken by golden strips of light.

Elijah brushes her shoulder with his knuckles and runs his fingers down her arm before settling his hand on her hip, his touch light, yet still sending sparks of electricity over her skin.

“Elena.”

She has nearly forgotten how her name sounds on his lips, a caress and a claim in one.

“Elijah,” she returns, aiming for steady and, yes, a little flirtatious, but it comes out as a declaration of both conquest and capitulation.

She steps closer, places her hand on his chest, his dress shirt — no tie or jacket this time — no barrier for the heat of him, his heart thudding beneath her palm.

“Do you remember?” he asks.

He doesn’t specify what, but she knows. _New Orleans._

“Yes.”

She doesn’t close her eyes, not until their lips meet. The kiss is everything their first one should have been, had she allowed herself to feel. A hint of sweet and tender mixed with fire and thunder, dizzying and knee-melting, Elijah’s hand in her hair, the other one on her back, pulling her against him as she links her arms around his neck.

The world around them doesn’t disappear, though; on the contrary, she knows he is as perfectly aware of the people milling around as she, of one person in particular coming into focus.

When they part, slightly out of breath, he rests his temple against hers for a second. Then, they wait.

There is fight-or-flight written all over Klaus’s face as he closes the last few steps. Or, more like him, mock-or-flight. Before he decides on either, Elena holds her hand out.

Elijah would be enough.

But she wants more. More for them: more than a piece always missing, more than an ever present edge of longing and resentment that would inevitably be there behind a facade of tolerance and acceptance. And more for herself, because she is a Petrova and this has always been where she would end up, but she has learnt a thing or two from the mistakes of her pasts, and she is done toeing the line between acceptability and happiness, ready now to plunge into the deep end.

Klaus stares at her outstretched hand and then looks at Elijah and a whole silent conversation passes between them, made up of minute changes in their features she would miss if she wasn’t looking, ended by a barely perceptible nod from Elijah.

Klaus’s throat works as he swallows before slotting his fingers through hers.

She releases the breath she didn’t know she was holding, tightening her fingers between his, and says the first mundane thing that comes to her mind.

“Come on, you two can buy me a dinner.”

It is just the thing to break the spell that has them caught in the moment, eliciting a startled chuckle from Klaus.

“May we?” quips Elijah after a beat. “How gracious of you.”

Her hand remains in Klaus’s and Elijah’s around her waist — and it feels so very right — as they walk down the street and go about finding a free table at a restaurant around the corner.

They make an easy affair of the dinner, with banter and flirting and a bit of serious conversation in between. Klaus kisses her between a bite of chocolate mousse and a sip of champagne, tasting of decadence and bubbles, while Elijah’s thumb draws circles on her knee, and after that they don’t take long to finish up.

“Where to?” asks Klaus when they step outside, and she recognises it for what it is, an out.

She doesn’t take it. “I only have a single,” she tells them instead.

They are renting a villa — of course they do — a little way out of town. It is quiet when they arrive and they lead her upstairs, to what she assumes is Klaus’s room, judging by the easel next to the window and the haphazard manner of a few things lying around that she wouldn’t ascribe to Elijah.

Between kisses, there is a moment of awkwardness when their fingers fumble and heads bang, and she laughs when Klaus swears and Elijah grumbles in frustration.

“Out of practice?” she enquires.

“Without practice,” Elijah corrects.

She starts laughing, then pauses. “Really?”

“Really.”

“You mean you’ve never…” She doesn’t even know what she’s asking.

“Shared a woman?” Klaus supplies. He rolls his eyes. “You are forgetting our dear Elijah has spent these thousand years keeping up the pretence of being a proper gentleman.”

They figure it out in short order, though, learning the contours of each other’s bodies that are already ingrained somewhere in their memory and yet new, because everything is familiar and destined and still a novel, only just taken road upon which they set off together.

Their hands explore, igniting embers under the skin, their lips following, and soon it is skin against skin on soft sheets and heat coiling inside her, tighter and tighter, and finally shattering — once, twice, thrice, and maybe again, but she loses count, because by that time she is only feeling, her tongue stroking against Elijah’s as he moves inside her, Klaus’s mouth around her nipple, a blunt nail teasing the other, liquid fire overflowing from her veins…

Klaus tilts her head to him and kisses her when he gathers her to him and enters her from behind, Elijah slipping down her body to settle between her legs, alternating between teasing licks over her folds and devouring her whole. The pleasure building in her snaps, wrecking her body like a landslide, only to start its climb anew as neither of them relents, and then Klaus sucks a bruise over her pulse point, sinking his teeth in her skin, and _that_ is what pushes her tumbling over for the last time, and they follow her, dropping off the edge like dominoes falling.

Afterwards, when they lie in a tangle of limbs, Elijah’s fingers entwined with Klaus’s over her belly, and she catches her breath enough to speak, she blurts, “We should’ve done this sooner.”

Elijah laughs shortly. “Maybe.”

“Probably.” Klaus grins, his eyes glinting.

“If only we’d found the time between all the negotiating,” Elijah muses.

“And plotting and blackmailing,” adds Klaus.

“Now, don’t forget the straightforward threats and murder,” Elena says, and they all laugh.

After a few moments, she asks, “Do you miss it… being vampires?”

Klaus turns on his side to study her, then voices a question of his own. “What do people do, with only a handful of decades left?”

The answer to that comes easily enough. “I guess… live every moment to the fullest.”

“Sounds good to me,” says Elijah, moulding against her back to spoon her.

And Klaus presses his lips against her shoulder, agreeing, “It does.”

***

And so, they live.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always welcome; do tell me what you think!


End file.
